Yahoo Inc beat Wall Street’s profit and sales expectations as spending by advertisers showed signs of life in the third quarter and as months of cost-cutting and restructuring boosted the Internet company’s bottom line.
Shares of Yahoo, the top US seller of online display ads but a distant No. 2 to Google Inc in search, jumped 5 percent after the results, which analysts said boded well for the fourth quarter, when ad spending should improve further.
Yahoo’s revenue from display advertising was much better than expected, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler, citing the 2 percent sequential increase in US display ad sales.
“That basically says that large Fortune 500 advertisers who want high-quality, premium inventory are going back to Yahoo more in the third quarter than they were in the first or second,” he said.
Yahoo’s net profit more than tripled year-on-year, though a big chunk of the upside came from the sale of its stake in Chinese Web site Alibaba.com (阿里巴巴).
Yahoo has undergone significant restructuring since chief executive Carol Bartz took over in January. It said in April it would lay off 5 percent of its workforce, or about 675 jobs, and it also pulled the plug on underperforming properties.
Yahoo also signed a 10-year Web search partnership with Microsoft Corp to challenge Google, a pact that US and European antitrust regulators are evaluating.
Chief financial officer Tim Morse said on a conference call that the company still believes the deal would close early next year and that they can make significant progress on integration in one or two major markets next year.
Morse said large advertisers began to spend again in the third quarter.
“I’m not going to predict when the growth rebounds, but I feel good that things are no longer on the downward trend,” he said.
Excluding traffic acquisition costs that Yahoo shares with partners, net revenue was US$1.13 billion in the third quarter, close to the average analyst forecast of US$1.12 billion.
That compared with net revenue of US$1.14 billion in the June quarter and US$1.33 billion in the year-earlier period.
Some analysts said the improvement that Yahoo experienced was a reflection of a brightening overall economic climate as much as anything else.
“Most of the benefit that they are seeing is because the economy is improving — a rising tide — not because of all the changes they’ve made,” JMP Securities analyst Sameet Sinha said.
Net income was US$187.8 million, or US$0.13 a share, in the third quarter, up from US$54.3 million, or US$0.04 per share, in the year-earlier quarter. Analysts were looking for US$0.07 per share, Thomson Reuters said.
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: The UK would continue to reinforce ties with Taiwan ‘in a wide range of areas’ as a part of a ‘strong unofficial relationship,’ a paper said The UK plans to conduct more freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. British Member of Parliament Desmond Swayne said that the Royal Navy’s HMS Spey had passed through the Taiwan Strait “in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Swayne asked Lammy whether he agreed that it was “proper and lawful” to do so, and if the UK would continue to carry out similar operations. Lammy replied “yes” to both questions. The
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
AMENDMENT: Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of high-temperature days, affecting economic productivity and public health, experts said The Central Weather Administration (CWA) is considering amending the Meteorological Act (氣象法) to classify “high temperatures” as “hazardous weather,” providing a legal basis for work or school closures due to extreme heat. CWA Administrator Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣) yesterday said the agency plans to submit the proposed amendments to the Executive Yuan for review in the fourth quarter this year. The CWA has been monitoring high-temperature trends for an extended period, and the agency contributes scientific data to the recently established High Temperature Response Alliance led by the Ministry of Environment, Lu said. The data include temperature, humidity, radiation intensity and ambient wind,
SECOND SPEECH: All political parties should work together to defend democracy, protect Taiwan and resist the CCP, despite their differences, the president said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday discussed how pro-Taiwan and pro-Republic of China (ROC) groups can agree to maintain solidarity on the issue of protecting Taiwan and resisting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The talk, delivered last night at Taoyuan’s Hakka Youth Association, was the second in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. Citing Taiwanese democracy pioneer Chiang Wei-shui’s (蔣渭水) slogan that solidarity brings strength, Lai said it was a call for political parties to find consensus amid disagreements on behalf of bettering the nation. All political parties should work together to defend democracy, protect Taiwan and resist
RSS